Burning Man LIVE

Latest Episodes:

A People's History of Burning Man Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

Stories. This collection is from Burning Man’s oral history project, an ambitious endeavor to track down and record interviews with people who helped shape the culture as we now know it.

Stuart and Andie “Actiongrl” Grace share some of the most memorable stories for your gratification and edification.

Lamplighters founder Steve Mobia talks about the San Francisco Suicide Club, the even-stranger start to the legendary Cacophony Society.
Denzil Meyers recounts the earliest days of the Cacophony event now known as Santa Con.
Lexie Tillotson remembers what it was like driving to Burning Man in the wayback days when you needed luck and a compass.
Kimric Smythe recalls the year that the Man Burn into a hot mess.
Stewart Harvey shares about traveling to Northern Ireland with artist David Best to build a Temple for “The Troubles.”

dispatch2022.burningman.org/the-philosophical-center

journal.burningman.org/category/philosophical-center

burningman.org/programs/philosophical-center

www.cacophony.org

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Preaching to the Playa Choir Dec 23, 2023

Show notes

Many people are surprised to learn that Black Rock City is home to two full orchestras and a Playa Choir complete with a secular Sunday sermon. Since 2012 Madi has been organizing and arranging the choir’s harmonies and happenings, each year with more and more help.

In this installment, kbot and Stuart talk with

Madi (Choir Director)
Tory (Director of Dusty Productions)
Leut (Preacher Man)

They have stories and more stories of inspiration and elevation. We get to hear many voices resonate with music, recorded live at Burning Man 2023 in the Black Rock Desert. Hallelujah!

https://playachoir.com

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Orchestral Maneuvers on the Playa Dec 23, 2023

Show notes

Some people are surprised to learn that Black Rock City is home to not just one but two full-fledged symphony orchestras. While the Black Rock Philharmonic kicks out the classical jams, the Playa Pops brings the big-ensemble sound to popular music.

Both are composed (ahem) of passionate volunteer musicians – classically trained, self-trained, and otherwise – who come together once a year to perform in the dust (or mud) the songs they have practiced all year at home.

In this installment, kbot and Stuart talk to members of the Playa Pops and the Black Rock Philharmonic about their process, their performances, and how the desert hates their instruments. And we get to hear some amazing live music performed by actual humans, recorded live at Burning Man 2023 in the Black Rock Desert.

https://www.playapops.com

https://blackrockphilharmonic.org

https://www.temple2023.com

https://www.michaelgarlington.com/chapel-of-babel

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L’Osti Québec! The 11th Principle of Poutine Dec 13, 2023

Show notes

Have you stumbled upon Midnight Poutine in Black Rock City? Maybe you listened to Québecois rock as you waited for some of that crispy, cheesy goodness? As with many camps on playa, Midnight Poutine is the cultural tip of the iceberg of a vast community of creativity and goings-on; this one in Montréal, Québec.

Arno Robin, one of Montréal's cultural instigators, spoke with Stuart and kbot about his nine-year journey from Midnight Poutine, to co-creating Montréal's Burning Man Regional Event, to developing a bustling makerspace.

It’s one of those stories we love — one that travels through Black Rock City and then keeps on going — carrying the Burning Man ethos back home to take root and sprout local mutations.

Plus… Stuart learns to swear in Québecois!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arno-robin-9b903936

https://losstidburn.org/en/home/

https://www.lespacemaker.com/en/

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Dana Albany: Dreaming in Metal and Glass Nov 29, 2023

Show notes

Dana Albany has come a long way since her first art project in the Black Rock Desert, a scrap-wood camel that got her started making things out of found materials, from discarded metal and broken glass to sun-bleached cattle bones and deer antlers.

She has built flammable targets for notorious machine-art groups, worked as the artist-in-residence at a San Francisco dump, and had her large-scale metal and mixed-media sculptures exhibited around the world, most recently at the “Radical Horizons” show at England’s Chatsworth House.

She talks with Stuart about her path to becoming an artist, which began with a spur-of-the-moment trip to Burning Man in 1996, about her mentors and mentees along the way, and about the joys of working with children to create high-impact interactive art.

DanaAlbanyArt.com

chatsworth.org/news-media/news-blogs-press-releases/burning-man-about-the-sculptures

burningman.org/programs/civic-initiatives/youth-education-spaceship

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George Reed: Invisible MOOP and the Net-Zero Nov 16, 2023

Show notes

We committed to be carbon-negative by 2030. How will we do it? We have “Burning” right in our name.

When it comes to solar, biofuels, and energy banks, we have many irons in the fire, or rather, we are planting many seeds. Hear how Black Rock City is a hotbed, or rather, a garden bed, for the innovation of clean energy.

Stuart talks with George B Reed III, Burning Man Project’s Director of Regeneration, about the progress we’re making for a brighter future, or rather, yeah, a brighter future.

George shares what Burning Man’s leadership has been developing to be in integrity with our principles, from composting organic waste for food cultivation, to making renewable diesel from captured carbon. He shares stories of our community preventing and reversing damage to the climate.

Hear how we’re collectively rewiring reality, showing our work, and sharing what we know. Here’s how you can do it for your camp, your cohort, your city.

Burning Man Project: 2030 Environmental Sustainability Roadmap

burningman.org: About Us / Sustainability (updated Oct 2023)

The Renewables for Artists Team

The Green Theme Camp Community & BLAST

Burning Man Journal: Your Checklist for LNT in BRC (2023)

Burning Man Journal: Waking Dreams: Evoking Greener Burns (2022)

Burning Man Journal: Sustainability Initiatives on the Road to Black Rock City (2022)

Burning Man LIVE: Burning Sustainably PART 1: We Can, We Will, We Must (Aug 2022)

Burning Man LIVE: Burning Sustainably PART 2: The Road to Regeneration (Aug 2022)

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Mysteries of Desert Wildlife with Dr Lisa Beers Aug 22, 2023

Show notes

The desert seems lifeless, yet it’s home to a whole lifecycle of bugs and animals from bunnies to foxes, from lions to horses to – most dangerous of all – COWS! Hear about the hidden lives of all that’s alive around Black Rock City.

Stuart talks with biologist Dr Lisa Beers aka Sciprus. When she’s not teaching in remote villages on the other side of the planet, she’s Burning Man Project’s land fellow studying the Fly Hot Springs territory.

In the face of mystery, she has the surprising answers, or at least more questions, and aren’t questions as good as answers? Aren’t they?

How do butterflies know to ride the jet stream from Canada to Mexico and back?

What do sea monkeys have to do with Fairy Shrimp Scampi?

How do feral Burners adapt from arid & dusty to moist & muddy?

journal.burningman.org/author/scirpus

Burning Man Live: Ep 25: Scirpus and the Majestic Fly Ranch

The Black Rock Desert of Nevada (wikipedia)

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Brody Scotland: Art From the Inside Out Jul 09, 2023

Show notes

How would you overcome shyness at BRC?

How would you break people’s brains at SantaCon?

How would you acculturate museum docents to Burner culture?

Brody Scotland shares how she did it, and how she went from hating Black Rock City to working year round in the Burning Man Art department.

Brody and Stuart delve into the uncommon common sense of self-care and “feelings” in the emo roller coaster of BRC. They explore a style of pranking where no one is the butt of the joke. And they celebrate “Shit Dave X Says.”

From hand-crafting iconic costumes, to logistics-crafting “weird little odd art,” this is a string of lively stories about Brody’s bespoke approach to increasing happiness.

Brody Scotland (Burning Man Journal)

Brody Scotland (Burning Man Staff)

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man (Smithsonian Institution)

Dave X (Burning Man Journal) & Shit Dave X Says

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The Streets of Black Rock City Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

Stuart and Burning Man’s Community Services head honcho Terry “Retro” Schoop riff on the streets of our fair city and the naming thereof, from the controversial to the miraculous to the misunderstood. Black Rock City has elaborate art themes, each with street names, each with curious conditions. Why does our recreational refugee camp even need street names? Were they always alphabetical around an imaginary clock face? And what’s a clock anyway?

Hear this year’s art theme (ANIMALIA) express itself through cryptids (animals that no one can prove are real). Folklore and fandom brought us our new ABC street names: Afanc, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, Dingbat… and NOT the Easter Bunny, thanks to Encantados, which are were-dolphins that shape-shift into dapper dancers in search of a party.

This is an episode with literature, lore, and laughter — and a pile of BRC trivia for street cred.

Streets of BRC 2023: Cavalcade of Cryptids | Burning Man Journal

Burning Man 2023: ANIMALIA

Terry “Retro” Schoop | Burning Man Journal

Burning Man Staff: Terry Schoop

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Steven Blumenfeld: The Tech of Art and the Art of Tech Jun 02, 2023

Show notes

Yes, Burning Man has a Chief Technology Officer, and his name is Steven Blumenfeld. In this episode Stuart chats with “Bloom” about art, innovation, immediacy, and the power of the unexpected, with trippy side trips into AR, VR, and AI (and TLA).

Yes, we have a CTO. We have all the enterprise tech needs of any not-small non-profit, with the added complications of ridiculously challenging work sites, a staff that’s mostly seasonal volunteers, and an ethos rooted in Ten Principles that don’t always line up with ideals of Big Tech or engineering efficiency. You don’t build a city of 80,000 in the desert — or a global community of dreamers and doers — without bending a few bits and bytes. Or stepping on a few tech-bro toes.

Bloom shares stories from his colorful career at the intersection of art and technology, from working with Al Gore at Current Media to pioneering the “always two years away” world of virtual reality. And he does his best to reassure Stuart that AI will not be taking his job… yet.

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